this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
315 points (100.0% liked)
Asklemmy
43950 readers
672 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
it's not the background radiation that worries people, it's the risk of a Fukushima-type incident.
Ehhhh, those are the ancient light water designs. Fuck light water, even though it's actually pretty safe. Advanced sodium reactors are where it's at. One loop is molten salt and nuclear fuel. The salt makes it less dense so it can't melt down like a traditional reactor. A second loop of salt is what steals heat from the fuel, which loops around to a water boiler further away. In essence, it's airgapped. While corrosion can be an issue, the lack of water in the salt loops helps a ton.
Solar towers with molten salt generators also work in the same way. The salts are molten and continue pumping out power for 12 hours after the sun has set, which makes them an excellent source of power for cities :)
I'd live next to a nuclear plant any day of the week! Especially if the homes are less expensive because of it :D
While the modern technology is relatively safe, itβs not a technical issue with the reactor design. Itβs a trust issue with the humans, particularly for-profit companies, that operate it.
And even then, despite the catastrophe it was, it only had 1 death attributed to it.
TIL. That's a good point. 20k deaths due to the earthquake but only 1 due to the power plant itself.